


The Immortal Realm: Omake

by joisbishmyoga



Series: The Immortal Realm of Barbelo [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Deus Ex Machina, Gen, Omake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 19:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11698020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: The twins skip the boss fight.  This was... perhaps not a good idea.





	The Immortal Realm: Omake

**Author's Note:**

> \- for Infestation, who had a bunny in comments. Sadly, this is not where I am going in fic, but it would not leave me alone. Mwahaha.  
> \- takes place after chapter 8 of The Immortal Realm of Barbelo  
> \- Destrudo is a term introduced by Italian psychoanalyst Edoardo Weiss in 1935 to denote ... the energy of the destructive impulse in Freudian psychology. (wikipedia)

  
Goro fought, of course.  But the twins were Shadow-strong, and already had a grip on him, and he couldn't catch hold of any Personae except Akira, who wouldn't be of any use here.  
  
Ignoring the beast's order for a slow death, the girls wrestled Goro into a blue shroud -- which he promptly managed to twist his head out of, since the sharp-cornered chains they used were too thick to actually be of any use in keeping something tied tightly -- and he bared his teeth and hissed at them as they shoved his neck into the guillotine's stocks.  
  
The smooth wood bit into his throat as he struggled against it, hoping a strap would snap, or the wood might splinter out of true and block the blade.  Something.  
  
Anything.  
  
_Anything_ , he prayed as he threw his heart open to the universe, as Buns grabbed hold of the lever.  
  
He managed to knock his mask free and yell for Akira just as she threw her weight against it.  
  
" _Shrive!_ " he screamed into the sound of the blade screeching down.  
  
_Thunk_.  
  
He couldn't breathe.  His head remained in place, but he couldn't breathe.  Could barely see past the flare of golden-white light -- just a little bit, he could, just around the edges, and there the twins had stricken little faces and one yellow eye each staring past him.  
  
The light blazed.  Coalesced.  Faded.  
  
And left a yellow-eyed elevator girl in vibrant Velvet blue, her white-blonde hair in a short bob, blinking vaguely at some point above Goro's head.  She pressed one gloved hand against her cheek.  "Oh my," she breathed.  "It would appear that I have been drafted into a new role.  How very intriguing."  
  
Her gaze dropped to him, and her breath stopped.  Her mouth made a little "o" of dismay.  "But... what is this?"  Slowly, she turned, and her eyes fell on the twins.  She stiffened.  "It seems," she purred, and something in Goro cringed helplessly away, "that _dreadful_ mistakes have been made in my absence.  Little sister."  
  
The twins clutched at their heads and collapsed.  Behind them, the beast took a step back, eyes bulging.  Goro had never realized there was such a thing as an expression that truly could only be described as 'oh shit'.  
  
She reached over her shoulder and tapped the guillotine lightly.  It shattered, leaving Goro coughing in its ruins once the blade clattered free to the stone floor.  _Air_.  He loved breathing, he really did... even as the air grew difficult to breathe, heavy and electric like a typhoon thundering slowly down upon them.  
  
Goro blinked and the girl vanished, a gong somewhere crashing deafeningly.  
  
No.  
  
She stood several steps past where the beast had, one fist still held before her, as dust went up from a now-demolished half of the room.  One lone stone in what had been a cell's ceiling crumbled slowly and fell.  
  
"How terribly embarrassing," she said, voice soft and flat and somehow still carrying over the reverberation... which sounded as if a three-story-high metal cup had been hit with half of a stone prison, which was apparently somehow exactly what had happened despite the beast's old-man shape.  "The Velvet Room in such disarray, and my master nowhere to be found."  
  
The beast looked distinctly less humanlike now.  Nearly three-quarters of it had crumpled in upon itself, leaving just half a leg (mostly foot), one hand, and one bloodshot eye to blink at her in horror.  The tiny corner remaining of its mouth gave a teakettle wheeze, and it faded into fresh blood and Shadows.  
  
The girl flickered, and the beast reappeared with its throat crushed in one hand, dangling a handspan off the floor.  "How could you have properly enjoyed our hospitality like this?"  
  
The wall hit Goro's back.  He hadn't even realized he was edging away from her.  What had he summoned?  What was she?  A Persona...?  
  
No.  She was not him.  Even less so than Akira was.  She wasn't even _human_...  
  
"Nee..."  
  
"... chan...?"  
  
"Just a minute, sister."  The elevator girl cocked her head, one finger tapping against her cheek.  "Now, what are you, I wonder?"  She crumpled the rest of the beast's head like a soda can, ignoring its weak struggles, then grabbed onto it two-handed and began crunching the rest with terrible metallic squeals and pops.  
  
Silence.  
  
Goro found himself in the very back of one of the cells, curled in a ball and shaking.  _what was she what was she what was she not human not human **not human**_  
  
"You."  It was a mere whisper, the distant rasp of chains when you stayed on the same floor of Mementos too long.  "Are _Destrudo_."  
  
The sheer loathing in that word made Goro's heart thump, once, as painful as if it would never beat again.  He curled up tighter and prayed to survive the weight of Her Wrath as metal tore in endless, tortured shrieks.  
  
"Well," She said brightly, some several eternities later.  "That was most cathartic!"  
  
(Goro didn't leave the cell until She'd gathered the rest of Akira's team, and Futaba had browbeaten Inari and Skull into hauling him out physically.  No one mentioned it when he shakily stood between Her and Futaba the entire time.  
  
"My name," the elevator girl said, "is Elizabeth.  It is truly a pleasure to meet you.")

**Author's Note:**

> Elizabeth Ex Machina! And she just got to tear apart a manifestation of the urge that has Minat/ko up on that damn Seal.


End file.
